'Preserved' - Cookbook Spotlight

Photo: Kylecathie.com

'Preserved'
by Nick Sandler and Johnny Acton
Kyle Books -- 2009
Buy it on Amazon

As much as the recent glut of home-canning articles, blogs, hardware and bookstore kiosks would have us believe it, man cannot actually live on darling little jams and preciously put-up pickles alone. S'OK -- Messrs Sandler and Acton are here to help you halt the march of time under blankets of aspic, tubs of salt, lashings of booze, heady wood smoke and plain old air.

But if you're like me, you go straight for the pressure-canned tongue.

See what we tested and find out whether the book's worth buying after the jump.

Takeaway tips: Who'd have thought a book about food preservation -- often subject to treacly elegies about simpler times, ye olden days, walking uphill both ways in cardboard shoes, etc. -- could be so hilarious?

"Once you get over the strangeness of having an animal's tongue in your mouth, you may find that you like it quite a lot." "Hundreds of plump shrimp erupted into their faces. Jack is still having therapy. Nick has a never-ending supply of dried shrimp." "[Octopi] are highly intelligent, and can easily work out how to remove a stopper from a jar to get at a lobster. But, sadly for them, they are also very good on the end of a fork."

The irreverence is limited to the headnotes; these boys know their stuff and present it in detailed, novice-friendly fashion. They're also deeply invested in the notion of "real food," and earned a foreward/imprimatur from the movement's grand poobah Hugh Fearnly-Whittingstall -- no small potatoes.

Quality of pictures: Inspiring. Rapturous. A visiting friend leafing through my copy couldn't stop moaning aloud and yelling out the names of things he was going to make, based on the close-focus texture studies, appealingly rustic plating and canning jar hero shots. "Biltong!" "Piccalilli!" "Gravadlax!" No one stopped him; we all leaned in and started cooing right along.

We tested: Piccalilli, Oranges in Brandy, Tongue and Lunchmeat

Truth be told, I won't know how these turned out as I'm holding off a few weeks for optimum flavor meld, but the nibbles (and swigs) I took during preparation seemed quite promising. More importantly, perhaps, the instructions were clear enough that I managed not to injure myself, my kitchen or any family members during my maiden or subsequent pressure-canning ventures, and all mason-jar lids have as yet retained their vacuum seals.

And wow, did I have fun. Lots and lots and lots of fun -- not to mention coming out of it with pints upon pints of tangy, addictive giveaway piccalilli. (The lunchmeat is mine.)

Worth the investment: If you're in it for a cupboard of show-off fruit preserves and state fair-friendly bread and butter pickles, you may be better suited for Stephen Palmer Dowdney's wonderfully instructive "Putting Up" or Eugenia Bone's aptly titled "Well-Preserved". If you are slightly more intrepid and fear not the trips to Home Depot for cold-smoker supplies or having ambient cod strung up under the stairs, you've found your new bible.

Canned tongue and canned tongue broth. Photo: Kat Kinsman